Republicans have proposed selling millions of acres of public land to tackle the U.S. housing supply shortage, which is nearly 4 million homes. Donald Trump pledged to rectify the issue by opening federal land for construction. Senator Mike Lee proposed making 250 million acres of land eligible for sale, but it was removed from legislation due to budget violations. Despite potential for some minor gains in housing supply, experts indicate that geographic constraints limit effectiveness, particularly due to the location of federal land in sparsely populated areas versus the needs in densely populated regions.
Selling millions of acres of public land for housing development could theoretically help narrow the U.S. housing supply gap; however, the actual impact would be minimal due to geographic constraints.
Most federally managed land is located in sparsely populated areas like Alaska and the West, which do not have a strong housing demand, limiting the effectiveness of selling such land.
The densely populated Northeast, where the housing shortage is most severe, has little public land available that could be sold to alleviate the issues in housing supply.
Releasing federal land might provide incremental gains in housing supply in select Western markets, but it cannot be seen as a comprehensive solution to the national housing crisis.
#housing-shortage #public-land-sales #geographic-constraints #real-estate-market #political-proposals
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